The producer working for TV adventurer Bear Grylls has spoken for the first time about the terrifying moment when one of the deadliest snakes in the world bit his foot.

My left foot: Steve Rankin is on the mend and says he is now 'resting' after doctors managed to save his foot

Steve Rankin, who has worked with Grylls as a producer on Man vs Wild, was in Costa Rica scouting locations for the upcoming Discovery show Naked and Afraid when the reptile attacked.

'As I was traversing through some deep jungle, I was bitten on the foot by a Fer-de-Lance.

'It was under a fallen tree as I
climbed over. Fer de Lance known to be aggressive and it just zapped me
in the foot through my boot.

'It's one of the deadliest snakes in the world and the fangs went right through my boot,' Rankin recalled.

The
producer was rushed to two-miles on a makeshift stretchers by his
fellow crew members and then airlifted to a hospital in San Jose.

But despite treatment of antibiotics and antivenom medications, the wound grew infected.

'About 5 days later the flesh in my foot had started to rot,' Rankin told TMZ.

Medical
crew in Costa Rica had to remove a large piece of skin and Rankin was
then rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles where he received skin grafts.

He is now making a remarkable recovery.

'Getting
better slowly but surely. Gonna be a long slow recovery though. Thanks
everyone for your good wishes. Skin graft came from my thigh so half of
my quad is on my foot the other half is on my leg!,' he posted on
Twitter.

'One of the deadliest snakes in the world': A "Fer-de-lance" or "Velvet" snake is extremely dangerous and found in tropical regions of America and Asia

He added that the quick actions of his crew to get him to doctors likely saved his life.

Agony: Producer Steve Rankin is making a good recovery after his foot was eaten away by a snake bite

News of Rankin's gruesome injury spread after the shocking picture of it - which was taken three weeks ago and showed the flesh on Mr Rankin's foot stripped away to the bone and tendons - went viral after it posted online by Grylls.

He has since tweeted a post-operation picture showing the foot following a skin graft, held together with surgical staples.

He also posted an image taken six days after the snake attack which shows the effects of the venom eating away at his flesh.

Accompanying that picture, he wrote:
'WARNING. Here's one for the gore fans.

'The flesh has just started to
necrotise and ooze a bit.' It appears alongside a link to the picture.

The original picture by Bear has
since gone viral and received many horrified reactions from some of the
adventurer's 1million followers.

The intrepid explorer didn't elaborate
on the injury, where filming was taking place when the snake attacked or
what type of snake caused the damage to Mr Rankin's foot.

Steve Rankin has tweeted this picture of his snakebite injury taken six days after the attack. He wrote: 'The flesh has just started to necrotise and ooze a bit.' He is now recovering after surgery

Bear Grylls, pictured at a sitting for Madame Tussauds today, tweeted a graphic picture of a snakebite received by one of the production team while filming for his latest show

In demand: BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are said to be in a bidding war for the survival expert's latest show which is to air in the US

But Mr Rankin later said the snake bit him while he was climbing over a fallen tree while filming for a forthcoming series called Naked And Afraid in California.